The Southeast Cornerstone Public School Division is letting it be known exactly how they feel about the newest education.

In the recent budget announcement on Wednesday, the province laid out a $1.99 billion education budget for the 2022-23 years.

That's an increase of $25 million compared to last year, which is below the inflationary rate for many of the school divisions' costs.

That's according to Shelley Toth, the CFO for the Southeast Cornerstone Public School Division.

"It's actually only a 1.5% increase from the prior year for school operating funding. When they announce that big number it includes all of the capital projects that they're undergoing, which is great, but we still need to operate. I can't speak on behalf of other school divisions, but I know for Southeast Cornerstone it's not enough to cover our costs."

"We've certainly seen less, but when I looked back over the past seven years, the funding announced yesterday is actually still less than what we've received in the 2015-16 year and I can certainly assure you that our cost of everything has increased over the past seven years."

While the province is also putting funding towards hiring more educational assistants in school and Toth says that more funding is appreciated, she also says they would prefer the autonomy to put funds where they think they're needed.

One request towards the province by Toth includes making sure their funding increases can cover inflationary rises in their current budget.

"I would like to see operational funding actually cover inflationary costs. They don't seem to realize that we have additional costs outside of teacher wage increases. Teachers only count for half of our staff, and wage or benefit increases apply to all of our staff."

Among the inflationary costs for the school division is also the rise in the price of fuel, insurance, and buses.

The division will likely have to make cuts this year as they decide how to proceed with the current budget.

"We'll meet with our senior leadership team next week and start looking at where we can make further cuts. We've made lots of cuts over the past seven years and we haven't had a balanced budget - I can't remember when, actually," said Toth, "So I'm pretty sure we won't get to balance, but hopefully (we'll) reduce the deficit to a manageable level."

The school division will need to submit its budget to the board and get their approval by the end of June.